The speedboats shot down, allegedly for transporting drugs, and the significant increase in the United States military presence in the Caribbean Sea are changing the rules of the game in Latin America.
Donald Trump classified drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a decision that is debatable. By definition, terrorism has political objectives, which distinguishes it from other forms of organized crime, which are generally ideologically agnostic and more concerned with obtaining profit.
However, terrorist groups have long resorted to drug and human trafficking, as well as money laundering, to finance themselves, thus entering the field of so-called traditional organized crime. The triple border area, where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet, is a worrying scene. In the case of Venezuela, the links between the regime, drug trafficking and the terrorism of the Colombian National Liberation Army are far from new.
Washington’s motivations became clear last Friday with the publication of the National Security Strategy (ESN), the first of this new Trump Administration. The fight against international drug trafficking – whose growth is evident, even in Portugal – and the fight against illegal immigration are defined as priority objectives.
Not being the biggest global focus of problems, Venezuela is relevant to these two objectives. And it is of enormous importance for another aim assumed in the aforementioned strategy: energy domain. “Cheap and abundant energy will generate good-paying jobs in the United States, reduce costs for American consumers and businesses, drive reindustrialization, and help maintain our edge in cutting-edge technologies,” it reads. Furthermore, Washington will not allow the Western Hemisphere to disrupt “critical supply chains”.
Since the 1990s, we have not seen a North American Administration so dedicated to Latin America. Trump inaugurates a new chapter of foreign policy, something paradoxical: the novelty is a return to the past, to the old Monroe Doctrine, which organizes the world into spheres of influence. Central and South America will be the backyard of the United States, where Ukraine will be protected from Russia and, perhaps, Taiwan will be the exclusive subject of China. Europe’s radical left is obliged to applaud Trump.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan regime intensified its focus on its area of expertise: repression. Under the argument of dismantling a fifth column, he spread the fearsome ‘collectives’ through the neighborhoods of large cities, especially in Caracas.
These paramilitary groups arrest dissidents, attack people to maintain order, monitor the cell phones of passers-by, and prevent social support from reaching the hands of those who are critical of the regime. They set up shop on the rooftops of the poorest neighborhoods, establishing permanent surveillance points, without much effort to hide them – fear only works when it is felt. They are a symptom of the praetorian, oppressive and illegitimate nature of the current power.
The Venezuelan dictatorship, which destroyed the democracy that began in the late 1950s and then devastated the economy, resisted waves of sanctions and constant diplomatic pressure. Trump sees the projection of military force as the factor that will finally open a breach in the authoritarian wall. If the regime falls, says ESN, it is not important that it is replaced by a democracy. Welcome to the 19th century.